God Was Busy

Chapter 11

Gradually, a routine began to emerge. It became easier because now I knew what to expect. The sun was up when my eyes opened, I had slept after going back to the room, feeling well-rested, but stiff. I was on the bed tucked under the blankets. I heard people talking outside.

I began to sit with a big group at breakfast that included Damon, Aoife, and several other people whose names and faces I now remembered.

The moment I slid into an empty chair, Damon smiled at me and placed a plater in Infront of me, I have never seen him without a smile since the day of my arrival and I know this is not for everyone, then he placed an enormous platter of food.

Every now and then Damon would joke about Master Hermes's deteriorating memory and how he fooled him. The girls would hoot with laughter—and immediately clapped their hands over their mouths to silence themselves.

The breakfast was as delicious as the previous day. I try to imagine assembling this breakfast myself back home. I will have to wait for fig season. We cannot go fishing, but I could get a wild turkey. Goat's milk would have to substitute for the white mush. We can grow peas in the garden. This tea is different but we can get Sideritis plant tea easily. I don't recognize the grain, though. Even the bread is tastier than the one I am used to. As for the fancy rolls, I can't even guess what's in it. Days of hunting and gathering for this one meal and even then, it would be a poor substitution for the palace version. What must it be like, I wonder, to live in a world where food appears on a word to the servant? What do they do all day, these people in the palace, besides decorating their bodies and letting their servants do everything for them including changing their clothes?

"Here try these....," Damon placed a basket of bread in front of me

"Thank you" a basket like this would keep my family going for a week.

I completely focused on how lucky I was to eat all this, but I realized I had pushed my luck too far when my stomach churned. Twice Damon asked, with unnecessary concern, how I was feeling. I told him it was nothing, but I was wondering if I should make it a way to escape going to the garden. I can pretend to be sick to make Damon go work there while I stay here and wash the dishes. Ridiculous. I don't have to run away.

I feared that Alexander must still be thinking about ways to punish me or even if he just talked to someone. Part of me wanted to find him in the palace and apologize. While I was lying sleepless in my bed, I even imagined what I would say. But I knew myself too well to think I would really have the courage to actually do it.

I leaned back to look around the room. I saw Master Hermes in the far corner of the kitchen. He hadn't paid much attention to his platter, but he was knocking back a glass of red juice that he kept thinning with a clear liquid from a bottle. I don't know Master Hermes, but I've seen him often moving his fingers to call for the red liquor. I wish I could request him to ask forgiveness from lord Alexander for what I did.

Unlike routine, The Royal family was gathered for their breakfast. I knew immediately that they were present in the room adjacent to the kitchen because the environment of the kitchen changed. Everyone moved with the fastest possible speed.

I can see from afar the tray set, with the better version of what we were having along with so many trays of thick stew, green salad, lamb chops, legumes, fish, asparagus, cheese, Eggs, honey, figs, olives, and fruits I haven't seen in my life., and a white sweet mush that they use for dessert.

Many girls rushed towards the kitchen counter filling their trays up and moving back to the room. I decided to permit myself one glance at them. I peeked from behind the curtain and bargained with myself. If I saw anger in Alexander's eyes, I would talk to Damon to go to the gardens in my place, like the coward I was.

They were sitting around the huge table. There were eight of them. They were talking, not eating, busy in their banter, though any food I could imagine on the face of the earth was present in front of them. The proud father was looking at Alexander.

How it must feel to be able to eat with your family without the worry of leaving some for tomorrow.

Alexander sat next to his father, at the head of the table, right in front of him was a woman that I guessed was his mother, the Queen, far too young to be Alexander's mother. Followed by two younger women and a man and Reah. all wearing beautiful gold tiaras.

They were all devastatingly, inhumanly beautiful. All of them had dark hair, were tall, Just the right proportioned body to deserve being Gods, the kind that demands to be worshipped. Their noses, like all their features, were straight, perfect, their lips full.

"Cassandra, what are you staring at?" Aoife intruded; her eyes followed my stare.

"Isn't Alexander the most beautiful man alive," she said?" I remembered what Damon said about him, that he was certainly the most violent, but that's the problem. Tiger's beauty was inseparable from its ferocity Or a cheetah's elegance was inseparable from the speed of its attack.

"Not only is Alexander of a fine bread but also, he is the best swordsman, the fastest runner, the finest horseman, and the strongest wrestler," she said "but then that's how perfect Gods should be.

I rolled my eyes and tried to change the topic "Who are these girls?"

"That is king Khufus' new wife, these are his three daughters," she said under his breath. "And that red-haired is Reah, Princess of Egypt" Throughout this conversation, my eyes flickered again and again to Alexander.

"Isn't she beautiful?" she said "she will soon be married to Alexander," — if I didn't know better, I would have thought she was the goddess of Beauty. All of them looked like a part of some perfectly stroked painting.

"Alexander is staring at you," Aoife giggled in my ear.

"He doesn't look angry, does he?" I couldn't help asking.

"No," she said, "I don't think so,"

"I don't think he has forgiven me yet," I confided. I still felt queasy.

"The Gods don't think this much about us. I am guessing he forgot what happened,"

As I examined them, we saw Alexander pause while talking and look in our direction —straight at me, it seemed—, in that poised, leisurely, elegant way of his, raising his glass in our direction as if presenting us with a toast.

A fresh wave of fear struck me and I snickered and I let the curtain down.

I felt confused. Was he presenting a toast to me? which means he has forgiven me? a wave of happiness when I realized he must have forgotten what had happened in the garden. I decided to honor the bargain I had made with myself. Since he didn't look angry, I would go to the garden. My stomach did frighten little flips at the thought of what if he visited the garden again.

But then I wanted to ask him why did he leave when I — a slave ordered him to leave? he could have told me, it was his mistake as much as it was my mistake.